Bangladesh travel almost 19,000 miles between Dhaka to Port-of-Spain to Colombo over the next two weeks to take on opponents as varied as Barbados, Afghanistan and Trinidad & Tobago - in Port of Spain - and Zimbabwe and Ireland in warm-up matches in Colombo. But it is clear that their attention is further down the line, on September 21, when they take on New Zealand in their World Twenty20 opener followed by Pakistan.

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mufi_02

August 29, 2012, 08:40 AM

NZ are in very poor form now. I think we should be able to beat them in the spin-friendly conditions on SL. Unleash Shakib, Razzak, Sunny, Riyad. Abul/Babul and his 'sheer' pace won't do any good.

Yasin.

August 29, 2012, 10:54 AM

The thing with T20s is that any one player can change the whole game [Azhar Mahmood almost did that yesterday]. I would still go with Shafiul and Mashrafe as our pacers. Mash should be brough after the first six to eight overs, like he was used recently in T20s and responded well to it. The rest hopefully will be taken care of by our spinners.

Out_You_Go

August 29, 2012, 11:16 AM

Lets get it right now. We can expect India to crush NZ and their morale will be quite down. Having said that, we need to take advantage of it reinforced by the fact that WC will be in a similar condition. I dont expect a win against Pakistan..but Alhamdullillah if we actually do it. Greatbach even agreed in their vulnerability to spin. More importantly, we need to tie down these 3 asap - McCullum, Taylor and Franklin.

Pallekele pitch is hard to bat on, so unless our batsmen dont play sensibly..we should be able to reach 130-140 and defend it. I am looking forward to NZ-Ind T-20 games. That would speak loads about what is to come.

playmaker

August 29, 2012, 11:26 AM

Brendon McCullum, Franklin, Oram, Vettori, Ross taylor, Guptill, these are their top T20 players, and who are ours? Tamim and sakib, and to a lesser extent Mashrafee.

Its not gonna be easy. We BDeshis are being too delusional esp. after the whitewash

Rabz

August 29, 2012, 11:49 AM

Poor form or not, we should beat NZ.
Period.
Beating Pakistan also isn't out of equation. It is T20 and anyone can beat anyone.

Rubu

August 29, 2012, 02:20 PM

I get the feeling that in SL condition, it is not going to be too hard to beat NZ and secure a place in the next round.

At the same time, I don't like the idea that just one match is the difference between success and failure of the entire tournament.

A longer round robin league type first round is necessary for a world cup type tournament to better judge the potential of a team.

shams91

August 29, 2012, 03:19 PM

NZ are in very poor form now. I think we should be able to beat them in the spin-friendly conditions on SL. Unleash Shakib, Razzak, Sunny, Riyad. Abul/Babul and his 'sheer' pace won't do any good.

NewZealand have always been on very poor form before any tournment, but when they are in the tournment :ohno: They are deadly.

They are like Germany (football team) like easily make it to semi.

Jadukor

August 29, 2012, 05:18 PM

We need to follow footsteps of WC team of 2007 and the recent U19 team... win the first game and send that opponent packing

I must say it's really annoying to see people fighting in the comments section of every freakin article involving bangladesh on cricinfo. There would always be a troll saying bangladesh do not deserve to play cricket and then 15-16 bd fans would be fuming and jumping up and down over it. Ajaira!

Dhakablues

August 29, 2012, 07:41 PM

I think it will be the other way round,, we will beat Pakistan but lose to NZ; NZ team is practicing pretty well in SL conditions and Pakistan team isnt really in top form recently. Though their T20 bowling line up is always the best with Umar Gul/Afridi/Tanveer but their batting line up is a hit or miss. But as Pybus rightly said, at T20 only couple balls can decide the match and its always very unpredictable which way things would go even if Kenya is playing Australia or Netherlands playing Bangladesh...

mr cricket

August 29, 2012, 08:56 PM

NewZealand always does well in major tournaments. So it definitely won't be easy. I think we have better chance against Pakistan since their batting is kinda weak and they have less T20 experienced players.

al-Sagar

August 29, 2012, 10:09 PM

is it possible that we will beat both and still don't qualify for the knock outs ???

Habib

August 29, 2012, 10:29 PM

is it possible that we will beat both and still don't qualify for the knock outs ???

Nope. In that case, Pak and NZ will fight it out for the other spot.

On topic- We should have full confidence to qualify for the next round. No excuse.

Naimul_Hd

August 29, 2012, 10:47 PM

is it possible that we will beat both and still don't qualify for the knock outs ???

Didn't expect this question from you Sagar bhai :o

There are 3 teams in our group (including us). How can we not qualify if we beat other 2 teams ? :)

jeesh

August 29, 2012, 11:57 PM

Brendon McCullum, Franklin, Oram, Vettori, Ross taylor, Guptill, these are their top T20 players, and who are ours? Tamim and sakib, and to a lesser extent Mashrafee.

Its not gonna be easy. We BDeshis are being too delusional esp. after the whitewash

Looks a formidable lineup. But nothing like catching them on low morale and attacking them with spin on a turning track.

And in T20 it just takes one special performance to be the difference between the two teams. If someone like Tamim or Shakib gets going you never know. Fingers crossed

Gowza

August 30, 2012, 12:26 AM

The spinners will be vital and so will the batting, not much going for us with the pacers.

godzilla

August 30, 2012, 12:41 AM

Everyone is so busy about NZ's match thus forgeting about the match against pakistan. Yes they are one tought team to beat but hey we did come quite close 2x during asia cup vs PAK.

crikss

August 30, 2012, 12:43 AM

We will win...let's hope for the best

Rabz

August 30, 2012, 01:46 AM

By the way, by KO Pybus meant Semis ? right ?
Cuz that should be our target.

If we cross the hurdle of group stage, courtesy of possible one win, we are in the second round with 3 other big boys. 2/3 wins there, we are in the semis.

We played like 5 gizillion T20 matches in last few months. If we can't shoot for atleast 3/5 wins, that would be sad.
This is T20 and we should fancy our chances.

Anything less than semis would be dissapointing and won't reflect our progress, if we made any.
The boys showed some promise in the Asia Cup and the Cubs didn't do too bad in the U19 meet, so to continue with that progress and show some consistency, Semis are a must in this T20 world cup.

Yasin.

August 30, 2012, 02:18 AM

Why does performing well in Asia Cup suddely mean we will be a good T20 side? They are different formats and the only reason we have got close to beating Pakistan twice in 2 matches is beacuse their batting attack is pathetic at the moment [when was the last time they scored 300 in an ODI?] but their bowling attack is managing to save their backside.

With Ajmal, Afridi, Hafeez, Gul, Tanvir -- Pakistan has one of the best if not the best bowling side in the tournament and I don't see uc chasing anything more than 130-140 against them. Then again. like it was mentioned before, its a T20 and any player can change the face of the game. Also Pakistan perhaps the best record in all T20 world cups. Wont be easy to beat them.

New Zealand have got key players who are coming in to some sort of form. Oram has been very impressive in SLPL. But again they are a bit weak in spin but how much will that matter in a T20, I really have no idea.

I would love to see who partners with Tamim up the order. If Ashraful does and bats at a strike rate of 90-100 then we are going to have a difficult time out there. We should be targetting 150-160+ scores regularly and be flexible with the batting line up.

jeesh

August 30, 2012, 05:41 AM

I reckon we ll play 3 spinners who will bowl 12 overs. Mahmudullah and Nasir might bowl a few overs too. So these 14-15 overs are critical for us.